Auto-attendants: Press 1 for Frustration
Imagine a customer calls you. What do you want their first impression of your company to be?
To cut costs, many companies implement an auto-attendant (“Press 1 for sales”, “Press 2 for support”, etc.). Some would prefer a live person to answer, but having a dedicated receptionist is not always cost-effective.
Connect to Customers or Keep Away?
At its best, an auto-attendant quickly provides useful information and gets customers to the right person. At worst, an auto-attendant is a confusing labyrinth that separates a company from its customers.
The Revolt Against Auto-attendants
Some auto-attendants have so many layers that you have to get special codes from a website just to get a live person on the phone.
Many customer-focused companies would like to have a receptionist and do away with an auto-attendant. But these are tough times, and sometimes it's just not cost-effective.
How do you balance cutting costs with having a live person answer?
Behold: the Call Center Feature
Even at smaller locations, simple call-center-like features can automate the process of finding someone who is available.
XO IP Flex, XO's integrated phone and data service, has an optional call center feature to automatically route calls to the right person. It gives smaller locations a lot of the features found in advanced (read: expensive) phone systems.
Through the XO web portal, you can setup call routing rules, so customers get the right people when they dial a number.
You Rule with Call Routing Rules
Have all the salespeople's phones ring at the same time. First one to answer gets the sale. Have that customer support call go to the person whose been on the phone the least today. And if no one answers, hunt down the supervisor, and then the manager...all the way to the top, so that no phone call goes unanswered.
For telecom ninjas: you can combine an auto-attendant with the call center feature to automate and then route calls, automatically getting your customers to the right person quickly.
[On a related note...if you tell a customer to "hang up and dial xxx-xxx-xxxx", stop it. Call your vendor and fix it today. Your auto-attendant can transfer them for you.]
